Venet

The devout Muslim buys me a beer.

“It’s all about love, man,” Venet, a bartender, says in a thick Albanian accent between sips of Schweppes Bitter Lemon.

We’re standing near the back of Depot, where Shpat Deda — Kosovo’s version of James Blunt — is having minimal success at moving a crowd that’s more interested in the DJ with whom he’s alternating sets at the popular Pristina nightclub. (“Can you please talk a little lower,” he softly pleads at one point, alone onstage with an acoustic guitar and harmonica.)

Well in excess of 2 meters tall, Venet towers most of the participants in the ritual of bumping, grinding, smoking and drinking. The young man who has submitted himself to God and prays five times a day at whichever mosque is closest has little use for this escapist orgy that defines the Pristina nightlife. Yet somehow he’s here, enjoying myself more as an observer than a participant.

“You seem to be on a different level than these people here,” I say over the mix of ’80s dance music. “Not better or worse, but you see the world differently.”

A wide grin appears on Venet’s face.

“You get it, man” he says before describing the “lost” years of drugs, booze, chasing women, and an unspecified tragedy that led to his rebirth in Islam. Although most people in Kosovo are Muslims, what they practice is best described as Albanianism — a cultural Islam that embraces life’s excesses.  So Venet’s transformation was more akin to conversion than anything else.

“Are you having fun, enjoying yourself? Need another beer?” Venet asks.

I order a mineral water, to the consternation of our more leisure-inclined companions as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” comes on.